Red Riding Hood Must Die

Red Riding Hood Must Die, I love the title of this card, there are so many books about Red which vary immensely on whether she is good or evil. My personal favourite is where the Wood Cutter comes to the rescue, where both Grandma and Red have been eaten but with a swift heft of the mighty axe the wolf is slain and both Grandma and Red climb out of the wolfs belly unharmed.

In a similar vein, when I was a child there was a folk tale about a fox who eat up a family of pigs. The youngest escaped to return later whilst the fox slept. The young pig slit open the foxes belly and rescue his family, he then filled the foxes belly with rocks and stitched it back up again. When the fox finally awoke he had such a thirst that he ran to the well to drink, fell in and was never seen again!

I was never sure whether I should feel sorry for the Pigs, Red, the Wolf or the Fox, and every time the tales were told I would change my allegiance. Perhaps its the old adage of loving the under dog, or our skewed perception of fairness that is weighed against the perceived oppressor, and who are they in these stories anyway? Well in my experience it depends on the teller and the listener, and as for Grandma in the tale, well if you really want to know, she is the one who wrote this -

Red Riding Hood Must Die

But that's a different tale altogether

PS I have decided to call these cards 'Bleak Fortunes' with a tag line of 'the pessimistic deck' what do you think. Today I pulled the card called 'The Switch Doctor' and I shall leave that story for another day.

The Web Walker

At last I have been able to transform my storywalks into a more user friendly format, or nearly!

I have often struggled (and users aswell) with the process of using apps to read my walks. So the new works are all browser based, and everyone knows how to click a URL?! Well click a link anyway (same thing if you were wondering!)

From my point of view I want users to have as few hurdles between them and the experience as possible, nobody wants a headache, it must be simple, intuitive and work. The builder is made, which is the back end bit for me to populate with images and stories. The pictures here are from the first to be tested which is the Dulverton walk 'The Watching Way'.

But there is still a long way to go, the main problem is I like my walks off the beaten track, I like to take people to beautiful places and then put a tale inside that tapestry. In hidden valleys and secret locations, places where the 3G reception is zero, and is likely always remain so. That makes for some serious know how about HTML5 and super magical coding, of which I know little, but I do know a man who does! 

So this has all come about because of Somerset Art Works who have kind of put me under their wing, and then chased me a little, and pushed and prodded me (nicely) to do what I know I need to do. Works that enable my practice to go to the next level, and connect with a larger audience. This kind of web work doesn't come cheap, but with SAW putting a little application in for LARC funding we have got to this stage.

We are still a way from having a product to shout about, and at the time of posting have hardly field tested at all. So watch this space, and keep your fingers crossed that we can get the tech to jump through these wild hoops. The riches and possibilities are fabulous, and it's theoretically possible, but then . . . . . . .

tell tales - the hidden history of the readers.

A girl once collected flowers on her way to school.

She took them from flower beds and hanging baskets, from the path side and front gardens, with out consideration of others. On she went picking and singing until the poesy was full, she then galloped of to school where she presented them to her teacher to say thank you.